Danger: Scientist At Work

NOT JUST A JOB - DANGEROUS WORK

What Researchers Are Willing To Do In The Name Of Science - And, Yes, Adventure - Goes Well Beyond The Laboratory.

July 31, 1994|By Scott Veggeberg, Special To The Sentinel

When volcanologists converged on the bustling town of Pasto, Colombia, for a U.N. workshop on reducing death in natural disasters, confronting their own mortality was probably the last thing on their minds.

But in January, the Galeras volcano, a mere five miles from downtown Pasto, erupted, spewing boulders the size of television sets.

It was not a major eruption, but eight scientists attending the workshop were near or inside the volcano's crater. Only two survived.

The tragedy at Galeras is only one example of the way some researchers risk their lives in the pursuit of science.

This year alone, eight researchers have lost their lives in two separate incidents in South America as they looked for clues on how to predict volcanic eruptions in the hope of saving lives.

Similar somber tales abound in other areas of research, from Africa's jungles to Earth's orbit.

But why do these scientists put themselves at risk?

What draws them to the volcano or to shark-infested waters?

There is adventure and excitement, many of them say, but many also view the dangerous situations they encounter as no more hazardous than more mundane activities.

Stanley Williams, a volcanologist from Arizona State University in Tempe and one of the survivors of Galeras, says: ''Going to volcanoes is not as dangerous as driving in developing countries.''

The Galeras incident was one tremendous car crash for volcanology, which has fewer than 100 practitioners worldwide.

On Jan. 14, about a dozen scientists were milling around the Galeras crater making measurements of gases emerging from the volcano and of the changes in local gravitational pull that indicate magma working its way up to the surface.

By midday about half of the group had begun their descent, while Williams, as leader of the field trip to the crater, remained at the rim to guide the remaining researchers down.

He recalls having a chat about how well the work was going with Russian volcanologist Igor Menyailov, who was just a few meters below him smoking a cigarette.

That's when the blast occurred, disgorging a hail of hot rocks, gases and lava that killed Menyailov and five others.

The curious thing about the incident at Galeras was that this was not a ''red-hot, ready-to-blow volcano,'' says Barry Voight, a volcanologist at Pennsylvania State University.

However, he adds that the Galeras eruption could have been predicted through the proper interpretation of seismic data from a series of small precursor events, but there are only about half a dozen people in the world who might have been able to anticipate the eruption.

For Williams, who specializes in gas and water flow as eruption predictors, and for others, it wouldn't have been possible.

''It's not like the symptoms were so obvious that a general practitioner might have recognized it,'' says Voight.

Williams says the eruption was unexpected. On the previous occasion that the Galeras volcano erupted, in July 1992, there was a week of noticeable seismic activity before the event.

But the same sort of activity occurred only after this year's eruption.

Today, Williams bears scars from serious burns and is still unable to walk without help, but he plans to return to study Galeras.

He claims the risk to the town below is just too great to give up the work - though he also admits that returning to the volcano is not going to be easy.

''It's going to be scary to go back to a crater the first time, but I'm sort of hooked.''

Philip Kyle, a volcanologist at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, says he too is addicted to volcano study.

''I think there's a thrill, there certainly is excitement, you do get your high, you do get your kicks from it. In general, if you're a geologist, you look at all these cold, old volcanic rocks and they're boring,'' says Kyle.

''When you actually go and see lava flows, it's very exciting. It brings everything alive,'' he says.

Kyle, who has survived 21 seasons of studying Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano - famous for an intriguing lake of magma deep inside its crater - says that he tries to temper his fascination with volcanoes with common sense.

''I'm not masochistic in the sense of having any death wish. I'm not trying to get closer just to play chicken with nature.'' However, he doesn't accept that the seismic indications were as subtle as Voight contends.

They should have been sufficient to warn the volcanologists that all was not well on the mountain. Yet they went ahead regardless. ''But,'' he says, ''you're inclined to do that.''

But Kyle notes that if he had been at the Colombian workshop, he wouldn't be alive today.

''I think if I'd have been there, almost certainly I would have been with the (Galeras) group. I would have been with Igor Menyailov, who was a good friend of mine,'' he says.

A herd mentality

Kyle says there is something that happens when volcanologists come together; a kind of herd mentality develops.